of the Surface of the Earth. Ill 



nations of the three continents, viz., the southern termina- 

 tions of Africa (the extremity of the whole ancient workl), of 

 Australia, and of South America, gradually approach the 

 South Pole. Xew Zealand, which is fully 12° of latitude in 

 length, forms, with great regularity, an intermediate link 

 between Australia and South America, ending also with an 

 island (New Leinster). It is a remarkable fact, that almost 

 precisely in the same meridians in which the teiTCstrial mass 

 of the old continent attains its greatest extension to the south, 

 the northern coast also advances most nearly to the North 

 Pole. This is a I'esult of the comparison of the Cape of Good 

 Hope and the Lagullas Bank with the European North Cape, 

 and of the Peninsula of IMolucca with the Siberian Cape 

 Taimura.* Whether the two poles of the globe are sur- 

 rounded by a zone of solid land, or only by an icy sea covered 

 with floetz beds of ice, is unknown to us. Towards the 

 Noi'th Pole, latitude 82° 55' has been reached ; and towards 

 the South Pole, only that of 78" 10'. 



Just as the great masses of land terminate pyramidally, so 

 the same configuration is repeated, and with great variety, 

 on the small scale, not only in the Indian Ocean (in the 

 peninsulas of Arabia, Hindostan, and Malacca), but also, as 

 was pointed out by Ei'atosthenes and Polybius, in the Medi- 

 tei'ranean, where the Iberian, Italian, and Hellenic Penin- 

 sulas, were judiciously compared by these ancient authors. f 

 Eui'ope, with an area five times smaller than that of Asia, 

 is also only a western and much divided peninsula of the 

 Asiatic undivided continent ; and the climatological relations 

 of Europe prove, that it occupies the same position in regard 

 to Asia, which Peninsular Brittany does in regard to the 

 rest of France.t Strabo had already remarked the manner 



* Agie Ccntrah; t. i., pp. 198-200. The southern extremity of America 

 also, together with the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, is situated in 

 the meridian of the most northern portion of Baffin's Eay and of the 

 Great Polar Land, %Yhich probably belongs to West Greenland. 



t J^lrabo, lib, ii., pp. 92, 108, Casaub. 



t Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. iii., p. 25. So early as 1817, in niy 

 work, Dc Distribulivne Gcoi/rap/iica Plantarum sccundutu Call Tcmpa-u»t ct 

 AUlludimn Mvnliii»i, I directed attention to the distinction wliicli is 60 



